Two semi grown-up adults living with our two sons, and 3 dogs. Join me for a crazy ride through parenting, renovations, green living, philosophical discussions, and more...

Friday, November 19, 2010

I can't possibly understand...

This might become one hell of a blog post. If you're overly sensitive about adoption issues...I really just suggest you skip it. My blog...my rant.

I'm know a lot of people in the adoption world. A lot of adoptive parents, a lot of adoptees and a lot of birth parents. One thing that I read over and over, and it just burns the hair off my butt is how adoptive parents can just never know what it's like to be a birth parent. How we can never know or understand their pain. You know what...they're right. I don't understand who, what or why they made the choices they made. I don't understand that at all. What I DO understand is as follows:

I understand what it's like to be a Mom. I know what it's like to lay in the dark, so in love with my children that I'm near panic attacks that something will ever happen and they won't be with me.

I understand that I would lay on a railroad track with an oncoming train if that's what it took to provide for my children. I know without a doubt I would research every avenue, event, and illegal activity I could possibly do if that's what it took to be with my children. I know I would eat beans and rice and drink water if that's what it took to put some food on their plate.

I know the hardships of being a mother. I know the challenges. Believe I know the tough times. We are not wealthy. We basically live pay check to pay check with plenty of debt in there just like the rest of America. I know what I'm willing to do just so I can bring at least one more child into our home. I know what I'll give up, and the the things I'm willing to let my other children sacrifice so we have the funds to bring another child home.

I know the joys of motherhood. I know them like a drug addict might know their drug of choice. I know I need my daily hit of my children. Their laughter, their fun, their spaz out sessions where nothing goes right. I need them.

So they are right. I do not understand what could happen in my life that I would ever place a child for adoption...not when I know what my children bring to my life. The majority of birth mothers are not young innocent women with their first pregnancy. They are mothers already. They are parents who know what raising a child takes. They make the choices they make because they do not wish to parent again, and they are right...I 100% do not understand that. Being a mother means they also know they have options, resources and assistance they can lean on. Being a mother means they also know what being a mother feels like. In giving up the hard parts, they are saying the amazing moments aren't worth it. That they can't find a way to do it. That is very sad. I do not understand that. I never could.

I also understand this. When an expectant mother is at a cross roads with a pregnancy, weighing each of her options carefully. Parenting, Abortion, Adoption. An unplanned pregnancy did not PUT her at those cross roads. That's a fact. Her life was not sunshine and roses and an unplanned pregnancy was this explosion that put her into a downward spiral. That pregnancy did not all the sudden make her wonderful loving supportive family 100% disappear. That pregnancy did not suddenly make a perfectly happy, stable life so out of whack there was no way to parent. That life was already in the downward spiral. That life was already unstable. The pregnancy and placement didn't do that.

Birth mothers need to get counseling not just for the fact that they placed a child, but also for the fact that their life was in a place that they felt that was best. That pregnancy was not a rock out of know where that knocked her otherwise perfect life off course. Something that she had no idea could happen. Unplanned is a great phrase, but when we're realistic, lack of planning was what really caused the pregnancy. Birth Control is wonderfully reliable. In the end, I'm sure placing a child is very hard, and very emotional, but the anger toward adoptive parents, and adoption agencies and the lashing out about how we can never understand is entirely misplaced. What should really be addressed is what the heck happened in their life that they made that choice. What led them to a place where they ended up with a a pregnancy they had no support for? Why were they emotionally in a place where parenting did not seem do-able? I think it's easier to blame other people. To wallow in your feeling about what happened when in reality, what happened is only a symptom of what was going on in that life. Look at the life, not the symptom.

3 comments:

After reading this, I was fuming but after stepping back and thinking about your post, some birth families are like this, not all, probably not the majority, but there are some that have just decided they didn't want to.

I'm not a birth parent, or and adoptive mother, but an adoptee, and from what I understand from my 1st mother is that, she had the support system, but she made the choice not to parent.

Its a choice that I feel should be respected, because she made that choice for the both of us. She wanted more for me and herself.

I like your honesty. I would like to add that the mothers who place their children voluntarily ARE different from women in similar situations because they accept that the best place for their baby is not with them. I personally know several moms and work to help several more who could not make the sacrifice. They knowingly brought children into their wrecked lives and kept them because they felt entitled to. Any mother who reaches a point where she knows her child will have a better chance without her is brave. I agree with you that the pregnancy isn't the thing that destroyed their lives.

As a mother of three biological children, who is hoping to adopt, I am glad to provide the love and family that a child deserves and a mother believes she can't give him/her. The reasons are her own.

About Me

I am Amy, married to Mike in May of 2005. We live in a home built in the 1850 and are renovating it at a snails pace. Add to the mix our two amazing sons through domestic adoption, Tyler (Jan 2008) and Matty (April 2009) along with three crazy dogs and I'm sure you can guess that I blog only when I have a spare moment!